MANHATTAN — Thirteen protesters were arrested after barricading themselves inside a government building Tuesday night, as the City Council scrambled to ready the 2011 budget for a vote.

After marching down Broadway, members of New Yorkers Against Budget cuts, who have been camping out across from City Hall in what they’ve dubbed “Bloombergville” for the past two weeks, swarmed 250 Broadway, where Council members’ offices are.

NY1 – The City Council has postponed its vote on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $66 billion budget until Wednesday morning, giving New Yorkers a full day to review the council’s annual list of pork barrel spending.

At 7:30PM Tuesday night, June 28, as City Council was scheduled to vote on the budget deal, about 100 residents marched from Bloombergville down Broadway to protest at City Hall.

As the protesters reached City Hall, a disruption squad of 13 entered the City Council office building at 250 Broadway, across the street. Chanting “Stop the Vote! Stop the Vote! We have a right to be here!” they sat down in the lobby, locking their arms together to block the entrance from inside.

When word of the action spread, protesters broke off from City Hall and hurried across Broadway to the City Council building. Inside the building, police began separating the protesters and arresting them. Shouting “Let Them Go!” and “They say cut back, we say fight back!” protesters outside surged forward to block the entrance, preventing police from taking the group out the main doors.

As police started bringing the sit-in protesters out a side entrance instead, they were met by more Bloombergville protesters, calling “Let Them Go!” and surrounding the two police vans they were being loaded into and keeping them from being driven off. Police and protesters chased each other for two blocks, stopping the vans and being pushed back so they could keep going.

Protests continued into the night at 250 Broadway and then at the Emigrant Bank Building, 49-51 Chambers Street, where the vote was scheduled to be held around midnight. In the end, the vote on the budget was postponed until Wednesday.

Today is the day the budget gets passed. But nothing has been settled. Unions are still meeting — their rank and file have yet to approve the deals made last week. Negotiations are continuing all day. And Bloombergville will be out in force fighting to overturn the budget.

It’s time to push harder! Last night, City Council changed the time of the budget vote to 8PM. But instead of rescheduling our protest for today, we’ve added a second one. Smaller actions are planned throughout the day. We came to defeat the budget and we’re not giving up yet.

We’ll start at noon and keep the pressure building until the vote is held. Join us any time — or come early and stay with us the entire day.

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1) DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE BUDGET CUTS

12:00PM at Bloombergville

Get the momentum started at noon. Come to Bloombergville (Broadway and Park Place) and have your voices heard. No Cuts! No Layoffs! No Compromises! A single teacher lost, a single service cut is one too many. Average New Yorkers have carried the burden of cutbacks for too long. Tax the Rich! Make Bankers and Millionaires Pay! With a $3 billion surplus and hundreds of millions in uncollected revenue, the city has more than enough money avoid all cuts if it wanted to.

2) BRING THE MESSAGE TO CITY COUNCIL

7:00PM – Gather at Bloombergville

Then March to 49-51 Chambers Street

New Yorkers reject this budget — and City Council must too! Meet at Bloombergville again in the evening. Then come with us to where the vote is taking place. Let’s fill the street outside during the vote and make some noise. Despite what you’ve heard this budget reduces services, eliminates jobs and guts union contracts. Major cuts are coming to city schools, healthcare and public services. If you have a child in public school, if you ride the subways, if you attend a city college, if you seek public medical services, these cuts will affect you.

Teachers and parents of students at The Brooklyn New School (BNS) and the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies (BCS), public schools devoted to inquiry-based pedagogy and expeditionary learning, have been following events at Bloombergville since shortly after the camp started, maintaining an email discussion about our work, telling their students and children about it, and sending their support.

Tonight at 5PM about 25 parents, teachers and their kids will be coming to visit Bloombergville in person to let students see for themselves the power of communal action. They’ll help make signs and banners, sing songs and add their voices to protesting the budget cuts. Organized by the BNS/BCS Political Action Coalition, the visit to Bloombergville has been part of a series of educational trips to expose their children and students to local political activities from visits to City Council Members offices to protests like ours.

Every family is welcome! Come at 5PM to Bloombergville (Broadway and Park Place in Lower Manhattan) to meet other concerned family and kids and add your voices to ours in sending the message that the new city budget will hurt New York schools and children.

Though deals were agreed to last week, the budget has not been settled. Negotiations are going on all day. Union rank and file have yet to agree to the deals that were made. There’s still time to stop the vote and defeat the budget! Our day of protests continues.

BRING THE MESSAGE TO CITY COUNCIL

7:00PM – Gather at Bloombergville

Then March to 49-51 Chambers Street

Meet at Bloombergville (Broadway and Park Place) at 7PM. Then march with us at 7:30 to 49-51 Chambers Street (the Emigrant Bank Building) where City Council is holding its vote. We want to get there before the vote begins. We have to let City Council know New Yorkers reject this budget — and they must also!

Despite what you may have heard, this budget reduces services, eliminates jobs and guts union contracts. Major cuts are coming to city schools, healthcare, and public services. Just one example: on Friday, it was announced that 2000 teachers would be lost to attrition. By today that number has been raised to 2600.

If you have a child in public school, if you ride the subways, if you attend a city college, if you seek public medical services, these cuts will affect you. If you’ve been thinking about joining us in Bloombergville during the last 2 weeks — now is the time!

Residents of Bloombergville were thrilled to participate in yesterday’s New York City’s Pride March. They marched as part of the 250+ person Economic Justice super-contingent featuring Queers for Economic Justice; United Auto Workers (UAW)–NYU and New School chapters; the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU); Walmart Free NYC Coalition; and Bloombergville.

Part of the Bloombergville Contingent at NYC Pride

Two nights earlier on June 24, same-sex marriage became legal in New York State. Bloombergville residents took part in the March to celebrate this incredible achievement of decades of struggle. But also to call attention to the New York City budget deals agreed to the same night, which have potentially serious impacts for the LGBTQI community.

Bloombergville waiting for the march to start

Few details of the final budget have come out, but proposals under discussion included severe cuts to public services for LGBTQI homeless youth and those with HIV/AIDS.

In response to proposed cuts of funds and services in New York City’s Public Library systems — there are three of them, the Brooklyn, Queens, and New York Public Libraries — Bloombergville opened its own library over the weekend.

The Bloombergville Public Library

Donations came from residents and supporters of Bloombergville. The library will operate with an exchange policy: give a book when you take a book. The range of books include literature, philosophy, history and political theory.